Once You Get The Feel Of It, 'St. Elmo's' Has Personality

For many people, the years just after college are especially vulnerable ones. Not only are recent graduates just beginning to understand the hostility of the world outside the classroom, they're also making major decisions that could affect their lives for decades.

St. Elmo's Fire looks at seven friends in the Washington, D.C., area as they muddle through their first years out of school. Most of these people have bad habits and impulsiveness working against them, but in their corner are youth, audacity and friendship.

The leader of the group, a resourceful fellow named Alex (Judd Nelson), works as a political aide. As the film opens, he's about to shed his long-held Democratic affiliation in order to work in the greener (i.e. richer) pastures of the Republican Party.

Alex has recently begun living with Leslie (Ally Sheedy), an aspiring architect. They're known as ''the couple most likely to couple,'' but Leslie's not sure that either of them is ready for marriage.

An especially earnest member of the group is Kirbo (Emilio Estevez), a part-time law student who waits tables at St. Elmo's Bar, where the group hangs out. Kirbo's roommate is Kevin (Andrew McCarthy), a journalist who muses about the meaning of life while pounding out obituaries.

The wildest cards in the St. Elmo's deck are Jules (Demi Moore) and Billy (Rob Lowe): These jokers like drugs and sex too much for their own good. Rounding out the group is Wendy (Mare Winningham), a slightly overweight social worker who lives with her parents and moons over Billy.

It takes a while to warm to these characters because, at first glance, they seem bratty, reckless and prone to making ludicrous ''scenes.'' One person starts a fight in the bar, another gets soaking wet and crashes a fancy party, yet another grabs a friend's head and sticks it in a toilet.

But such acts of self-dramatization eventually start to make some sense in terms of the characters who perform them. Yes, these people are bratty and reckless, but they are also people in transition without much experience of the world.

St. Elmo's Fire has been called The Little Chill because its ensemble structure invites comparison to The Big Chill. Although the new film isn't in the same league as that movie, it does approach the more modest level of The Breakfast Club (in which Sheedy and Estevez also appeared).

Joel Schumacher, who directed and (with Carl Kurlander) wrote St. Elmo's Fire, doesn't have the storytelling finesse to present his tale of interwoven lives. But he's good at defining his characters. And in the process, he manages to put a lot of fresh, young faces on the screen -- among which Sheedy and McCarthy stand out as the most realistic.

Schumacher's previous experience includes writing and directing the trashy, funny D.C. Cab and writing the trashy, flashy Car Wash. Unlike those movies, St. Elmo's Fire attempts to tell a story of some depth. It isn't as coherent as it ought to be, but at least it's intermittently involving.

There's a lot of comedy in St. Elmo's Fire, mainly the sort of humor that grows out of the characters' personalities. After a particularly tough encounter, for example, Demi Moore's character makes a melancholy quip: ''I never thought I'd be so tired at 22.''